It is common for commercial and other roofs that are substantially flat to seal the roof with a waterproof membrane such as polymer coated membranes, more commonly referred to as thermoplastic polyolefin membranes or simple TPO membranes. Almost all such roofs include various protrusions that project upwardly from the roof deck such as, for instance, vents, ductwork, air conditioning units, and the like. Providing a water-tight seal around such protrusions, and particularly where the corners of a protrusion meet the flat roof deck, can be a challenge. More specifically, it is possible to wrap the protrusion at least partially with a skirt of TPO membrane with the bottom edge portion of the skirt flaring out to cover and be heat sealed to the roof membrane. However, this requires that the skirt be slit at the bottom of the corners of the protrusion, which leaves a region where the corners meet the flat roof unsealed and subject to leaks.
Corner pieces made from TPO have been developed to address this problem. For example, the Firestone® ReflexEON® inside/outside corner patch is a molded piece of TPO plastic with the general shape of a right angle corner permanently molded in. The molded corner is placed around the bottom corner of a protrusion and the patch is heat sealed to the surrounding TPO membranes to seal the corner. In contrast, GenFlex®TPO reinforced outside corners are factory fabricated corners made from high performance TPO roofing membrane. These are generally made by slitting a square piece of TPO membrane from its center to a corner and then spreading the membrane out at the slit to cause the opposite corner to form a loose pleat. The gap between the spread edges of the slit is then filled in with another piece of TPO membrane, which is heat sealed in place to form a unitary corner patch. In use, the loose pleat is applied around the bottom corner of a protrusion and the patch is heat sealed to surrounding TPO membranes on the roof and the protrusion to form a water-tight seal.
Other examples of attempted solutions can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,700,512; 4,799,986; 4,872,296; and 5,706,610. It also has been common in the past for installers of membrane roofs to custom make their own corner patches on-site by heating, stretching, cutting, and otherwise manipulating small pieces of TPO membrane. Corner patches and other solutions in the past have not been entirely satisfactory for a number of reasons including that they do not fit well around corners, they must be “bunched up” to fit a corner properly, thus jeopardizing the ability for form a reliable seal, and/or they contain heat sealed joints that can fail and result in a leak. There is a need for a corner patch that addresses satisfactorily the shortcomings and problems of the prior art.